Dragon Necropolis (COV) the best zone in the expansion

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Fian, Dec 12, 2020.

  1. Fian Augur

    Like the rest of the zones, I took the strategy of getting all 3 partisan and all 3 merc tasks before working on any of them. When you zone in, there is a quest giver, right there. One partisan task acquired. Check. You then notice phase spiders walking around. Cast regular invis, and they are no longer aggro. Simple.

    Following the path, everything seems fine, until some skeletal excavators (undead) aggro from far way and start to chase you. Time to burn your fade to lose aggro, recast reg invis away from them. Along the way you find quest givers for partisan 2 and 3 quests. You then reach the castle, that splits the zone into 2. Mercenary quest giver is on the other side. Looking inside the castle you see a large number of undead restless paebala. They don't see through ivu. So you run through the undead rats, and the next thing you know you have aggro'd the chetari. They look the same as the paebala, however they see through everything (even SOS I hear). Other than clearing them, the only way I was able to get past was to mez all of them (which in sets of 3 isn't easy). Mezz/blur them, lead group past. It should be noted that there is a way to levitate over the castle, but it isn't easy - good luck getting a group across. Anyway, mission accomplished, all 6 quests acquired. Time to work on them.

    I won't cover all of the tasks in depth, but they did have some trends. They forced the group to repeatedly cross through the castle with its pitfalls. But then the quests get mean. They send you into the caves of DN. The caves are populated mainly by 3 types of enemies: undead paebala, see everything chetari, and swarms of beetles. The beetles con light blue at 115 and come in groups of 10-20. They cannot be mezzed. They are a challenge for a tank, and easily dispatch non-tanks. They don't see through regular invis. The temptation is to cast reg invis and run by them, but then more often than not you encounter an undead paebala who breaks your invis, and now your group is facing the swarm and undead at same time which usually means instant wipe. Double invis does help, but with the chetari around, that isn't a guarantee either. So the safer strategy is to clear the creatures. And that is a painstaking task. As you spend more time delving further and further into the caves, you have a thought in the back of your head. We have been in these caves over an hour. If we wipe, we would have no choice but to start again from the beginning... So you start to become more risk adverse, trying to make sure you always have one person that is FD at a sign of trouble and hoping they can rez the group.

    Eventually, you reach your goal, gate out of there in one way or another, return to quest giver. And the quest giver sends you even DEEPER into the caves. Many of the quests are not tasks that you will complete in one day. So the next day you hope to find another group going deep into the caves so you can get the next task update.

    The quests are brutal, and yet, having completed them, there was a deep satisfaction at the completion. There was something special about a dungeon crawl where the mobs respawn, and you can't just instantly run back to where you died. Where death truly had meaning. While overall, I am not impressed with the COV expansion, this zone is truly special.
  2. Petalonyx Augur

    This sounds awesome! Sounds perfect for my guild's multi-group progression night event!
    Ironkeg and Gyurika Godofwar like this.
  3. Fanra https://everquest.fanra.info

    It is rather difficult and quite time consuming. I do agree that there should be a very few quests that are. We used a mage, which really helped as they Call of Hero'ed us.

    One of the quest givers in Cobalt Scar is also difficult as they are somewhat surrounded by mobs, some see invis.

    It would have been very frustrating if we didn't have a good group. Since we did, it was just challenging.

    So I'm pretty happy with it.
  4. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Sending only 1 to Pok for the WW quest would have been helpful !
  5. Kelset Elder

    Doing DN now and enjoying it. The see invis, even with dual invis, is a challenge since you have to cross the same path a few times. I'm using a combination of campfires, evacs or just clearing the path to do the runs back and forth but it definitely is enjoyable even if a slight PITA :)
    Ironkeg likes this.
  6. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Just wait till you have to go in the cave, with a 6 minute respawn....
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  7. Bobbybick Only Banned Twice

    Sounds like they captured the spirit of the DN Rat caves perfectly. Are campfires not an option though?
  8. Fanra https://everquest.fanra.info

    Campfires work. Although you do need a safe spot to put them in.
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  9. Yendar Augur

    I agree w the sentiment here 100%. It’s much more rewarding to complete these things when they are challenging instead of monotonous. DN progression was fairly nasty. Then you have zones like Sleepers and Skyshrine where the progression is run to western wastes, run to eastern wastes, do a turn in, kill 5 mobs, run back to another zone. Please no more tasks like this where we are randomly hopping from zone to zone.
    Elyssanda likes this.
  10. Fian Augur

    I have a mixed feeling about the Sleeper quests. By having you run to all of the other zones in the game, it made it feel like the final zone in the expansion. It also gave value to having a druid or wiz in your group. But I do agree it was over used.
  11. Kelset Elder

    Hehe just found out what you mean and haven't beaten it yet. Part of the issue for me is I burn through all my wizards mana and can't micromanage it enough to beat the respawn. That, however, is related to wizards that are in bad need of tuning and not this zone. Hate to do it but will substitute a necro and see if I can get past. Still loving the zone, just not my poor wizards performance at the moment.
    Yinla likes this.
  12. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    From one wizzy to another i feel your pain. I still need to finish mine, will try again with a chanter and see if that helps. Or just form a raid and murder the lot of em.
  13. Kelset Elder

    I used a cleric with DA to agro and snare/feign'd with necro, that worked. I think I could do the same DA/root/evac/campfire with the wiz if lucky enough to get the root off and campfire back in time.
    Yendar likes this.
  14. Barbwarrior Augur

    One of the partisan with the deep in update spot just run in with bard speed and gate
    Out?
  15. Dhurgan Augur

    You can use the ground features and levitation to get high enough to go over the top of that building and avoid going through the see invis mobs.
    Yendar likes this.
  16. Fian Augur

    I forgot one other trick that they do. There are some snakes in the tunnels, and they blend in to the ground. I never see them before they attack.
  17. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    I thought we had to kill the inquisitor, but I could be remembering wrong, I've been to sleep since we tried.
  18. Yendar Augur

    You do have to kill the inquisitor
  19. Barbwarrior Augur

  20. Fian Augur